SB 933 :udy ill Humbugology 



.R5 

Copy 1 '^' '^^^^' ^y ^^^^ ^einlein, 1751 Derby Street. 

Portland, Oregon 

1£8 July 1, 1920 



SOON after the Hon. Gilbert N. Haugen became Chairman 
of the 1 louse Committee on Agriculture I made an 
attempt to convince him of the need of action on the part of 
the Department of Agriculture on a number of issues pending 
for years, practically all of which are discussed in my Circulars 
No. 155 to 157. Pending- action Mr. Haugen sent me a copy 
of a hearing before the Committee last winter on behalf of 
appropriations for the Bureau of Entomology, which brought 
out a number of statements on the part of the U. S. Ento- 
mologist and liis staff in reference to insects just now requir- 
ing special attention, and in regard to certain means of con- 
trol for some of which I had especially requested Mr. Haugen 
to have ^the Bureau of Entomology define its position. In 
the absence of action, this copy of the hearing was examined 
by me, thoroughly annotated and returned to Mr. Haugen as 
a help to get action taken on just the points most wanted. 
However as soon as it was forwarded there arrived a letter 
from Mr. Haugen, this letter having been sent him by the 
Department of Agriculture, in which acting Secretary C. F. 
Mervin practically claims the means for the control of insects 
and fungi I recommend are worthless, this without giving the 



slightest detail in any particular case. Therefore to enable 
the reader to judge for himself as to the merits of the case I 
take up a few of the issues, stating the position both of the 
Department and of myself. 

The discussion before the Committee as to what the 
Bureau of Entomology considers to be the proper means for 
the controlling of the Japanese beetle in New Jersey otters 
a good example for a general understanding as to the merits 
of the claims on each side. 

On page 35 of my Circular No. 155 I called attention to 
the fact that the U. S. Entomologist in his report for 1918 
had stated among other things that this beetle is a very 
general feeder, having up till then been found on 41 plants, in- 
cluding such a variety as grape, apple, cherry, buckwheat, 
sweet potato, corn, many ornamentals and weeds, as smart- 
weed, morning glory, black locust, ironweed, etc. 

According to the Entomologists' statements the insect 
lives 10 months out of 12 in the ground as a grub and the 
"larvae feed on decaying vegetable matter." I pointed there- 
upon out that this means that, as a rule, "they are hidden on 
the top of the soil right below that layer of decaying vegetable 
matter where they and also the resulting pupae can be readily 
found by poultry." Evidently the beetle oviposits by prefer- 
ence in grasslands as do many other beetles of similar habits, 
May beetles for instance. If then the use of poultry, carried 
on systematically and on a large scale, was no good, why does 
not Chief Howard explain? As he did not do so, I call atten- 
tion to the ways he expects to employ to destroy the larvae, 

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©CI.A570997 
■'r • AUG 10 1920 



for Mr. Mervin makes the following claims: "....All of the 
methods that Mr. Reinlein recommends so strongly have been 
investigated from time to time by the experts of the Depart- 
ment and none of them has been found to be of any great 

service except in a most restricted way " Thus, if the 

Entomologist has tested out the use of poultry for the destruc- 
tion of those grubs as claimed, and this systematic use of 
poultry was described by me as far back as 1915 in my Circu- 
lar No. 146, let him explain why it did not work with the grubs 
in the soil 10 months out of 13. What method does the En- 
tomologist use in its place, and which he claims to be better? 
He uses "cyanide of soda in solution at the rate of 1 pound to 
200 gallons of water and applied at the rate of 22000 gallons 
per acre." That is very expensive. This then kills "most of 
the larvae." If it does, it means it kills those that are near the 
surface, where poultry could have easily found them and 
grown fat at the job. Then again how about the beneficial 
insects the Entomologist says he wants to set to work. Pro- 
bably the most valuable ones are the ground beetles, which 
would probably be as much affected by the poison as the 
grubs. Then there is probably some danger of poisoning 
stock, involving at any rate, careful watching. "Weeds along 
the roadsides have been burned to destroy their food and 
render such places unattractive to the beetles, thus. . . . waste- 
places along ditches and other spots which cannot well be 
treated with cyanide are being cleared of weeds. . . ." Ditches 
and roadsides want to be kept in tough sod and burning and 
''clearing" is destructive to both, because of the resulting ero- 

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sion. Such a course adopted generally would fill up the rivers 
and reservoirs with sediment. Chief Howard knows the de- 
structive effect of erosion since I had called his attention in 
past Circulars to official literature in regard to this matter 
and often quoted from it, for instance on pages 32 to 35 of 
my Circular No. 157. 

"Plowing the soil infested by the grubs and pupae ap- 
pears to destroy them. It will be necessary to do this kind of 
work very extensively in waste places and many areas not un- 
der cultivation." Aside from thus increasing erosion, where will 
there be left any hibernating places for any beneficial insects? 
Again, this means destruction of cheap pasture and means 
treating meadows and pastures with cyanide, rendering farm- 
ing intolerably expensive. Also Chief Howard has a habit of 
talking about protecting wild birds in one breath, and about 
burning over ''wasteplaces," their natural home, in the next. 

"The work of eradication and control has been vigorously 
prosecuted. . . .but in spite of all that has been done the insect 
is increasing rapidly over new territory and at the time of 
the present writing is perhaps 150 per cent more abundant 
than at the same time last year." Why then talk about eradi- 
cation at all? When I call attention to such things the Ento- 
mologist tells his Superior I am trying to assail the Depart- 
ment. 

"During hot days the Japanese beetles are strong fliers." 
The territory given in the 1918 report is 25,000 acres. Now 
after the pest has had a rapid increase, it is said to cover only 
15,000 acres. "While the beetles are flying a wide barrier of 

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poisoned foliage is maintained as completely as possible 
around the whole area of infestation," With an appropriation 
of 130,000 dollars a year for 25,000 or 15,000 acres you can do 
a lot of things to buncoe the people with a supposed possibil- 
ity of eradication, things that are absolutely out of question 
with the man that has to make the farm pay. 

On page 36 of my Circular No. 155 I described 2 ways of 
handling the beetles. First, while the beetles are dayflying, 
they probably also fly during the early part of warm dark 
nights, and in that case can be more or less successfully trap- 
ped with a torch, used as a light trap, to be later described in 
conjunction with the European cornborer. Another method 
was also described. It "consists in concentrating the adults to 
tassels of late-sown corn, especially sweet corn. As "the insect 
attacks the ends of sweet corn," there is in the first place no 
good reason why with the preferred food supply short as the 
insect becomes more generally distributed, it should not attack 
field corn heavily. But with the beetles strong fliers during 
hot days from midsummer till fall, it will, with corn a favorite 
food plant, be possible to attract the adults to the tassels of 
late-sown corn when such tassels are in the pollination stage. 
A little such corn sown two weeks apart so as to provide 
tassels from midsummer till fall will decidedly concentrate 
the beetles. If this corn be then rolled down, poultry given 
access could do the picking off, otherwise it has to be done by 
manual labor." 

I then went on to show that this is merely an adaptation 
of a method I described as far back as 1898 to concentrate the 

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adult harleqviin cabbage bugs, and that later on I showed that 
this bug can best be controlled by providing some cruciferous 
plant going to seed at intervals during the season, and have 
the bugs picked off by poultry. The Entomologist lies when 
he says this method is no good and that the Bureau has a 
method that is better, for Mr. Mervin has been induced to 
say "the methods of the Department are without exception 
based upon careful field investigations by competent experts." 
The harlequin cabbage bug has recently received renewed 
attention on the part of the Bureau of Entomology in Farm- 
ers' Bulletin No. 1061. What makes this insect of increasing 
importance is the fact that it has learned to breed on a large 
list of cviltivated and wild plants other than crucifers, making 
the old standby in control of it by the Bureau, "clean cultural 
methods," even more impracticable of effective application 
than it was before. 

Some of these non-crucifierous cultivated plants are : > 
"... truck crops of nearly all kinds ... of which eggplant, 
asparagus, potato, tomato, okra, beans and beets are most af- 
fected" (p. 8). Also: "... squash, late corn, grapes, and 
nursery plants of citrus, loquat, cherry and plum. The bugs 
are also partial to weeds other than crucifers, including rag- 
weed, pigweed, wild lettuce and lambsquarters. They congre- 
gate on all parts of these weeds, but appear to prefer the 
stems." "The stems" evidently mean the forming seedstalks, 
these containing the choicest juices of the plant. 

Says the Bureau on page 11 : "The grower should bear in 
mind the unusual fondness of this insect for horseradish, 

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which, being a perennial crop, serves as a natural trap crop 
throughout the growing season. The foliage of the horse- 
radish should never be neglected so that the insects are per- 
mitted to breed on it continuously. ..." The use of hand- 
picking and of a torch are recommended. But the bugs on 
horseradish are largely hidden and such destruction is in real- 
ity not what could be desired. 

As horseradish, grown for roots, does not bloom, and has 
no seedstalks where the adults might be exposed to view, why 
not then see to it to have all through the season some crucif- 
erous crop nearby going to seed, as then the adults will 
largely congregate in plain view on the stalks, can be picked 
off, possibly by the use of poultry, and thus the pest in the 
whole neighborhood be kept down to harmless numbers. This 
use of cruciferous seedstalks is especially effective when used 
out of season, that is, when few or none of the cruciferous 
plants, wild or cultivated, are normally in bloom. Thus a row 
of stumps of early cabbage, or, still better, of early cauliflower^ 
could be allowed to throw up seedshoots in and after midsum- 
mer, purely to act as traps, when few crucifers will be in 
bloom. 

"The large size and bright colors of the insect and its 
scorn for concealment render it easy to detect ..." (p. 11). 
yes, the adults. How about the nymphs? "The eggs . . . 
are normally placed on the underside of the leaves ..." (p. 7) 
and the nymphs, as normally, feed out of sight. Of course the 
aim should be to concentrate the emerging hibernated adults 
in the spring. "Throughout the year wild plants of the mus- 

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tard family should be carefully kept down, not only in the 
fields, but in the immediate neighborhood ..." says the Bu- 
reau on page 10. A big job, and just what "immediate neigh- 
borhood" is to mean the Bureau is wise enough not to say. 
There is pretty good evidence to show that the adults, on 
warm spring days for instance, can fly for miles when in need 
of choice food. A systematic use throughout the season of a 
specially attractive crucifer in bloom, such as rutabagas, cab- 
bage or cauliflower, throvigh sowing or planting a traprow 
along some crop likely to attract the pest in large numbers, 
will concentrate the bugs, and, there is no good reason why 
this picking off could not be done then by poultry, if a little 
grain is scattered along these trapplants. 

'"The value of the hand torch for the control of this insect 
has been proved by experimenters in Texas. ... Its chief 
value is in the destruction of the insect on trap crops, although 
an experienced operator can safely apply it to a garden or 
commercial field, bearing in mind that only an instant's contact 
with the hot flame, i. e., sufficient to cause the bugs to drop to 
the ground, will so injure them, by scorching the legs and at- 
tennae or "feelers," as to render them harmless and incapable 
of recovery. The brief contact necessary to accomplish this 
will not injur the plant. . . ." (p. 12). This is essentially what 
I had shown to be the case as far back as 1898 and the Bureau 
all along was wanted to show who it was, if anybody, that de- 
scribed this method before that date. 

However this admission, as it stands, means a lot more 
than what it shows on the surface. If a moment's scorching 



of such a stout bug renders it incapable of recovery, why could 
not then a torch of some such type as shown on last page lick 
ofT for instance the lice or thrips on grains, or why could not 
a torch outfit be designed to lick off lice or pear thrips on tall 
trees? 

The Bureau on page 12 calls attention to the fact that "in 
cool or breezy weather" a torch is likely to give trouble and 
advises the use of a vaporizing coil inclosed in the burner to 
remedy this trouble. There stands nothing in the way to 
devise a suitable torch for the use on vegetation of any height 
and under anything like favorable conditions, as repeatedly 
referred to in Circulars No. lo5 to 158. Naturally strong wind 
is to be avoided. But it is less of a detriment than in spraying 
and dusting. 

Again I had shown as far back as 1898 that the harlequin 
bug is attracted to the pollen of sweetcorn. Hence, with the 
insect greatly extending its range of food plants, certain non- 
cruciferous plants, grown for use or ornament, when in bloom, 
will act as special attractants for the adults, as also in the 
range of the Japanese l^eetle they will serve to attract and 
concentrate the beetles. 

For concentrating the Japanese beetle rows of millet 
might be even better when in bloom than sweet corn, making 
easy picking for poultry. 

Thus since neither Chief Howard nor anyone else can 
prevent further spread of the Japanese beetle, the practical 
control of this insect resolves itself into the judicious and 
extensive use of poultry the year around. Instead of contin- 

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ually advocating the burning over or plowing up of lands 
not under cultivation, poultry working under supervision of 
man can and must be made to do as near as possible all the 
work previously done by wild birds, now with most of the 
country under cultivation reduced to a fraction of their former 
number. 

Thus for instance on pages 24 to 38 of my Circular No. 
157 I was discussing the control of the grainbug and the 
Mexican conchuela, doing great harm in the dry sections of 
the Southwest and West. I pointed out from the Depart- 
ment's own literature that plowing and burning and the use 
of chemicals as advocated by the Bureau of Entomology in 
Department Bulletin No. 779 destroys the slow growing, 
drought resisting native grasses and turns the land over to 
the worst kinds of weeds. I showed that encouraging the 
development of poultry solves the problem with and without 
concentrating the bugs to millet or other crops in best con- 
dition at certain times. If this use of poultr}' as described 
was tested out as claimed, why are not any definite statements 
made? 

A striking case of where poultry proves to be the only 
feasible means of control in the case of an insect often occur- 
ing in enormous numbers was given on pages 13 to 16 of my 
Circular No. 157. The insect in question is the smoky cranefly. 
This insect is capable of doing great damage in destroying 
cereal and forage plants, as many as 200 larvae having been 
found in an area a little over a square foot. There are many 
species of this genus present as adults at different dates be- 

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tween spring and fall. Poultry, it was shown, would get many- 
adults as they oviposit in grass, preferably such as is rank. 
Then also, the larvae were shown to make small ridges 
through burrowing just below the surface of the soil, attract- 
ing admittedly the attention of birds, hence also of poultry. 
The Bureau does not recommend the use of poultry. They 
recommend nothing altogether. They have no remedy. Only 
in the case of a late ovipositing species they make an attempt 
at showing a means of control and what do you think it is? It 
is close grazing of pastures "as the adult flies usually congre- 
gate in rank growth of grass, clover, weeds, etc., and there 
lay their eggs." That is, here the Bureau wants to have waste 
places handy with rank growth on it, to protect the meadows^ 
the very places they habitually say should be burned over or 
plowed up. Such places, of course, are the breeding ground 
for many insects, injurious, beneficial and neutral, but they 
are the very places for poultry and stock to gain a great deal 
of their sustenance and thus keep the cost of production down. 
One should think a man claiming to be an economic entomolo- 
gist would not need to have such facts hammered into his 
head. But then there are none so blind as those that do not 
want to see. Taking this case as an example, it is obvious 
that with poultry having access, the insect could never become 
really plentiful. 

Under primitive conditions all land was what the U. S- 
Entomologist calls "waste places." Wild birds and beneficial 
insects could thrive there and insect outbreaks were then 
practically unknown. Extensive cultivation furnishes an in- 

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crease in food plants, and a corresponding decrease in facilities 
for the multiplication of birds and beneficial insects. Hence, in 
modern agricvilture, poultry must be used as far as possible to 
take the place of wild birds. Without this, of course, such 
"waste places" are always liable to furnish an overflow of 
injurious insects to attack cultivated crops. On the other 
hand, if a field is cleared, these "waste places," such as head- 
lands and fencerows, concentrate the insects, and it is up to 
poultry to keep them down. In this way "waste ])laces" are 
used to protect succeeding adjoining crops against a great 
variety of insect outbreaks. 

On page 16 to 19 of my Circular No. 157 is given a short 
account of the value of poultry in the control of the New 
Mexico range caterpillar. Also from Department Bulletin No 
124, p. 28, issued by the Bureau of Entomology, is shown that 
Mr. Chas. Springer of Cimarron, N. M., hires a boy to herd an 
immense flock of turkeys to keep the grasshoppers down. The 
Bureau was wanted to show for 5 years past why then the 
use of poultry for the control of the range caterpillar during 
10 months out of 12, when the insect is not in the form of a 
caterpillar studded with urticating hairs, should be imprac- 
tical, being as poultry are a domesticated form of natural 
enemy of insects in general. 

About 7 years ago the Bureau of Entomology attempted 
to establish a calosoma beetle (C. sycophanta) in the range 
caterpillar belt. I pointed out in my Circular No. 146 and 147 — 
the Entomologist calls it a theory — that the attempt would be 
useless, showed that the insect as larva has to work there 

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unprotected and exposed to view by birds, and being hairless, 
is attractive to them, while the hairy range caterpillars are 
repellent to them. I showed from U. S. D. A. Bulletin No. 
251, p. 9, that skunks, raccoons and foxes destroy the beetles, 
as also do many other smaller animals. I showed the insect 
has trouble maintaining itself in the woodlands of ]\Iassa- 
chusetts, where as adult and larva it can climb the trees and 
be out of reach of many of the enemies that attack it on and 
in the ground. When I tell them such things, referring to 
their own writings, they, the Entomologist and the Patholo- 
gist, make their Superior say "his recommendations obviously 
are purely theoretical and made without experience with the 
insects and withotit other knowledge of the various subjects 
he treats than that afTorded by the literature." 

On pages 21 and 22 of my Circuler No. 157 you find some 
of the main causes why the use of poultr}^ is the best means 
to control the Argentine ant at large as pointed out as far 
back as my Circular No. 147. The Entomologist (:loes not 
want to admit this, or in turn show why it should not be so. 
On page 14 of his report for 1919 he makes reference to a new 
ant poison used in connection with banding to protect citrus 
trees against multiplication of mealy bugs through the agency 
of the Argentine ant "which has resulted in one of the most 
notable successes in insect control in the State of California." 
In the case of citrus trees such a treatment is quite feasible as 
far as cost is concerned, but ask the Entomologist how he 
would prevent the Argentine ant from fostering the mealy bug 
on sugar cane and other crops and he has to admit he has 

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nothing that is tangible. 

On page 31 of my Circular No. 151 I had shown from the 
Bureau's own writings (Ent. Bull., No. 123, p. 73), that an 
English sparrow was found industriously picking up the Ar- 
gentine workers from a trail, as also a flicker digging up shal- 
low ant nests for adults, pupae and larvae, yet according to the 
Entomologist's contention I was wrong when I claimed that 
poultry, being by nature an enemy of the pest, can and should 
be made the chief reliance to control the pest at large. 

On page 38 of my Circular No. 155 a short reference is 
made to poultry as the best means to control the alfalfa weevil, 
a plan partly endorsed by the Bureau of Entomology in D. A. 
Bulletin, No. 107, p. 57. If poultry is of value when used spar- 
ingly as there admitted, why cannot their number be increased 
and they thus be used to protect farm crops at large. The 
Bureau advises the use of poison. While this can be made 
to give satisfaction as far as it goes, I had shown on pages 
i8 to 15 of my Circular No. 155 that alfalfa may be attacked at 
the same time by other pests where poison is of little or no use, 
while poultry is of use. I mentioned the garden w^eb worm, dis- 
cussed as an alfalfa pest in Farmers' Bulletin, No. 944 The 
insect is not at all readily amenable to treatment by poison, 
on field and forage crops, but I showed poultry can readily se- 
cure the pupae in the ground, also many adults as they hide 
about the plants during the day, and they can secure the 
larvae on the plants. Then there is the alfalfa caterpillar, the 
larva of a butterfly. This insect can easily be secured by 
poultry as adult, as larva on the plants, and as pupa hanging 

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on the plants. Rootborers might be present, as briefly men- 
tioned on page 13, and carried out in detail on pages 1 to 4 of 
my Circular No. 145. Poultry is far the most feasible means 
to check this trouble by securing the bulk of the adults. If 
not, have the Entomologist show why this should not be so 
in this and all the cases previously mentioned, and many 
others specifically discussed in my Circulars No. 146 to 157. 

However the habits of the majority of the injurious insects 
are such, poultry can be but little used in their control or 
not at all. Of the newer insects of this class the European 
cornborer makes a good illustration. In the case of this insect 
the use of poultry is thus summed up on page 11 of my Cir- 
cular No. 156, which gives on pages 1 to 11 a complete des- 
scription of my means of control : "During the resting season 
infested grasses and weeds will break at many of the points 
infested and poultry given the run will get a large part of the 
borers." Poultry can thus get the borers down to the roots, 
really the only feasible way they can be gotten at all there 
and without having removed the protecting shelter furnished 
by the tops to the roots of the plants, if perennial, during the 
winter ; or, in the case of annuals, furnished for the protection 
and enriching of the soil and the sprouting of new growth of 
better plants than could succeed were such protective cover 
removed. In cool sections of the country where this insect is 
singlebrooded, this course goes a long way as a means of con- 
trol. In such sections corn growing is not much of a factor, 
but the insect can there seriously injure many other plants, 
since with its wide range of foodplants it can increase enor- 

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mously within a few years. My plan to attack the insect dur- 
ing the breeding season, as briefly given on page 3 of my 
Circular No. 157 in the case where the insect is singlebrooded, 
consists in providing a patch of grasses, forming seedheads at 
the time the bulk of the hibernated moths are about to lay 
their eggs. If the surroundings are kept reasonably clear, by 
mowing or grazing, of suitable seedheads for the time being, 
this trappatch will receive the bulk of the eggs. The sooner 
this trappatch is cut after the bulk of the eggs has been laid, 
the greater will be the mortality of the larvae developing in 
this crop. In any case, if this crop is carefully utilized before 
the time of emergence of the moths the following spring, the 
bulk of the borers that would otherwise survive will have been 
killed, doing away, simply by the judicious growing and cut- 
ting of forage crops, with the necessity of winter attack as 
claimed by the Entomologist in his report for 1919, p. 1, as 
follows: "... .The vulnerable point in the insect's life histor}' 
is in its hibernation as a caterpillar in the stalks of corn and in 
the stems of other plants which it attacks and there is a large 
list of them. ..." It is exactly the large list of food plants 
M^hat makes winter attack impracticable, all the more as de- 
struction, one way or another, is to include "the stubble and 
upper part of the root," and the plants attacked include many 
perennial plants both wild and cultivated, all of which need 
the "stubble and upper part of the root" as a protection against 
thawing and freezing to even survive. In practice we know 
that these foodplants are scattered over lands owned by many 
different people, many of them not directly interested in con- 

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trol. A law to permit a neighbor to let poultry run over such 
uncared for lands during the dormant season can easily be 
passed, while enforcement of repression after the U. S. Ento- 
mologists' method is out of question. The insect is carried in 
spinach, celery, beans, beets and other truck crops, and cer- 
tain part of New England dependent upon these supplies from 
the infested area in Massachusetts opposed quarantine rather 
than go without the supplies. 

". . . . By the failure of the Federal appropriation the op- 
portunity for very effective work was lost. ..." A claim the 
appropriations were short or not available can always be work- 
ed by supposedly honest experts on Members of Congress that 
listen only to their side of the story. If to offset this calamity, 
the House Committee on Agriculture will now only get a good 
hold on the Entomologist's wool, we will soon settle down 
to very effective work all around. "The result was that with 
the appearance of the moths issuing from untreated or imper- 
fectly treated areas in Massachusetts there was a spread at 
the end of the fiscal year, so that at the date of the present 
writing, August, 1919, the insect is known to occur over an 
area of 1000 square miles. ..." By October 1st the spread is 
given as 1200 square miles in the report of the Federal Horti- 
cultural Board. The pest is now considered to have been "in- 
troduced about 9 years ago (1910) with large importations of 
Hungarian broomcorn." that is. was not discovered till 7 years 
after its introduction. 

Where the insect has two broods, the first brood is to be 
taken care of by the use of forage crops furnishing an abund- 



ance of suitable seedheads, and cut in time to cause the great- 
est possible mortality of the grubs as just described. If the 
trap crop is not cut. because of rain or for other reasons, till 
the borers are nearly ready to emerge as moths, this trap crop 
should be at once baled to reduce the emergence of moths to 
the minimum. However, if corn is to be protected against 
the second brood, this can be done by providing another trap- 
patch at the time the moths of the second brood appear. This 
might be corn sown rather thinly for fodder, with many stalks 
then throwing up tassels, or we might use a suitable mixture 
of grasses just then heading. 

However the corn or other crop it is desired to protect 
may be as attractive as any that can be provided. This is 
especially likely to happen where there are 3 to 5 broods. 
Some of the broomcorn in which the pest was imported went 
to New Orleans where the insect could produce 4 broods, 
with 5 in South Texas. To obviate this difficulty I described 
on pages 5 to 10 of my Circular No. 156 a system of trapping 
the moths with some such apparatus as shown on last page, 
fitted with certain attachments. In practice the torch illus- 
trated is suspended on the hook shown in the illustration as 
serving as a handle for the piston rod, about 12 feet from the 
ground, hose, pipe and burner to hang down perpendicularly. 
A pail is hooked on the burner. This pail receives a spitton- 
coverlike fitting, flush or slightly below with its top, and over 
the burner is placed a similar lampshade like fitting. This 
leaves a circle of light to shine forth from between these two 
corresponding cone-shaped fittings, one and one-half inches 

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apart being about best for general work. 

The pail contains some sweet smelling liquid. In the case 
of the corn borer a mixture of molasses and water would pro- 
bably be the most suitable all around. This mixture, being 
kept steaming through the blast blowing down upon it, attracts 
insects fond of such sweets, even if these insects were other- 
wise repelled by the light. The torch doesnt't make a bright 
light. This in cases where insects are rather adverse to light 
is an advantage. Also where the place is rather small, since 
each individual farmer is primarily interested in freeing his 
own grounds, not those of his neighbor. According to a state- 
ment made by the Entomologist before the Committee the 
corn borer is attracted to light and has been known to be car- 
ried on trains because of thus being attracted. If thus a crop 
it is desired to protect is as attractive to the moths as is the 
trap patch, such a torch placed into the trap patch would de- 
tract, both by the light and by the smell furnished, the moths 
from the crops it is desired to protect. Even if the trap did 
not catch a single moth, it would protect the crop indirectly 
by inducing the moths to oviposit on the trap patch. 

Thus in the cotton belt the corn borer would no doubt 
breed in cotton squares. And what is more, it would be 
difficult, if not impossible, much of the time to provide a more 
attractive crop for trapping, as the squares when tender and 
plentiful are likely to be preferred to all else. What is the use 
to protect the squares with poison against the bollweevil, 
feasible only late in the season, when the corn borer can de- 
stroy every square in spite of such protection, being not ma- 

—19— 



terially affected by even frequent use of poison ? 

The same holds good with the pink bollworm, now get- 
ting well established at the northern border of Mexico and 
present now in certain parts of Texas. The limitations in the 
use of poison in the control of the boUweevil are discussed on 
pages 1 to 4 of my Circular No. 154. The reasons why with 
the pink bollworm present in Mexico it cannot be kept out of 
the United States are given with means of control on pages 
12 to 18 of the same Circular. It is there shown that in the 
first place the pink bollworm causes a severe shedding of 
squares early in the season. Imagine with the boUweevil, the 
European cornborer and the pink bollworm all causing severe 
shedding, with the corn borer capable over most of the cotton 
belt of producing 4 broods at an average of 450 eggs per fe- 
male and the pink bollworm a good second, both increasing 
with virulence towards the end of the season in the absence of 
any efficient official means of control, being limited in increase 
purely by lack of suitable oviposition material as far as cotton 
is concerned. Of official means the Bureau has for the control 
of the boUweevil only poison, which is effective only late in 
the season, and not likely to be of much value where the season 
is short, or if bugs, lice or red spiders are present also, to take 
what the boUweevil does not take. For the corn borers there 
is nothing officially endorsed but "cleaning up" in winter, and 
for the pink bollworm nothing but a similar "clean-up." 

Speaking of means of controlling the pink bollworm you 
read on page 7 of the Report of the Federal Horticultural 
Board for 1919 that "under the labor scale in the United States 

—20— 



the intensive clean-up methods required" (to control the insect 
in Mexico and Egypt under the present official methods) 
"would be almost prohibitive in cost." At that the "methods" 
are only "fall cleaning and destruction of old plants and the re- 
planting with clean seed." That is the Bureau has no means to 
attack the insect during the growing season. I quoted on page 
16 of my Circular No. 154 from official literature as follows: 
"The pink bollworm affects the production of cotton in sev- 
eral ways. First a considerable number of squares and bolls 
are so injured that they fall to the ground. In case of heavy 
infestation fifty per cent of the crop may be destroyed in this 
way...," And I there showed that poultry would secure a 
certain number of the moths hiding on the plants during the 
day and "poultry forced to patrol the cottonfield by being fed 
and watered and held there long and often enough to keep 
the pest under control will attack these squares and bolls same 
as they are wanted to attack squares and bolls infested by the 
bollweevil. . . .i; is obvious that '.he most efficient work with 
poultry is early in the season. ..." I also there showed that 
where there are two or more broods of the pink bollworm a 
year as occur on American cc^tton in India and would occur 
in most of our cotton belt, the pupal stage is spent in a cocoon 
in the ground an inch below the surface, being thus also sub- 
ject to attack by poultry. All this, according to the U. S. 
Humbugologist is purely theoretical. Having stuck his snoot 
out of the rathole and spit out his venom, he crawls back, 
hoping he won't be followed by a hot poker. 

As given briefly on pages 19 and 20 of my Circular No. 

—21— 



157 I had shown that the destruction of cotton stalks early in 
the fall drives the bollweevil to adapt itself to go either with- 
out cotton during this period, or learn to breed on plants other 
than cotton. I showed that if a small patch, preferably re- 
served at planting time, and located in the center of the field, 
about the hundreth part of the field in size, be sown to cotton 
very late, this patch would attract the bulk of the weevils, 
where poultry could make constant war on the grubs in fallen 
squares, and also on the adults up till frost, and even up to 
the destruction of the plants, that thus there will be but com- 
paratively few weevils to enter hibernation even with all the 
plants left standing and bearing till frost. I showed that 
poultry could patrol all the fields in the winter and spring, 
showed that with the falling of squares poultry could be 
made to patrol the cotton field. Thus if the corn borer or 
the pink bollworm, or both, be present, poultry could keep 
these down at the same time. In addition I showed both the 
corn borer moth and the pink boll worm moth could be at- 
tacked by the use of a torch light trap, as previously described. 

For a number of years the Bureau of Entomology had 
practically nothing to say about the size of loss caused by the 
bollweevil. On the contrary they made a systematic efifort to 
have the farmers look at the bollweevil as a blessing in dis- 
guise through forcing diversification of crops. Now that a 
partially successful method of using poison has been evolved. 
Secretary Meredith says the department has found a way to 
get the weevil, and gives the loss in years gone by as 
$200,000,000 a year. But after you have read Farmers' Bulletin 

—22— 



No. 1098: Dusting- Machinery for Cotton Boll Weevil Control, 
you will come to the conclusion that there are yet, as practi- 
cally there admitted, a good many obstacles in the way of 
success, and that the use of a trappatch late in the season, as 
advocated by me, by concentrating the weevils, also makes 
much easier the control of the weevil by poisoning, if this 
method is chosen in preference to the use of poultry, by keep- 
ing poisoned only this trappatch. 

Secretary Meredith says the pink bollworm is present al- 
ready in 12 counties in Texas and Louisiana, and says we have 
to eliminate it without delay. The worm was discovered in 
the fall of 1917 in 3 localities in Texas and the "eliminating" 
began right there and then. A spread to 12 counties mean- 
while, in several localities, and in spite of the Department's 
best efforts, does not look much like elimination. Moreover 
I had shown on pages 12 to 18 of my Circular No. 154 that 
with the worm established in Mexico, the worm cannot be 
kept out because the adult lives for about 17 days, and in the 
absence of cotton can feed on pollen or nectar of other malva- 
ceous plants, thus can travel long distances in search of cotton, 
its "much favored food plant." In addition: "... Hibiscus 
and other plants closely related to cotton may serve as hosts 
for the pink bollworm . . .'" (Rep. Fed. Hort. Board, 1919, 
p. 7). Thus elimination would not be worth while, even if it 
could be secured at moderate cost, since reinfestation across 
the Rio Grande would follow at once. Mr. Meredith admits 
the worm "may cost another $200,000,000 a year." Hence the 
need of having the merits or demerits of my system of control 

—23— 



sifted to the bottom. 

"Imagination spells the difference between small success 
and big success," says Secretary Meredith. Yet it is imagina- 
tion, or theory, about me what the U. S. Entomologist is al- 
ways harping about. All investigations are based upon imagi- 
nation, or theory, and the investigation most needed just now 
is to have the Entomologist's wool examined, for, in effect, he 
claims to have examined mine. 

As the U. S. Entomologist is trying to throw brickbats at 
me while he thinks the throwing is good, we might just as well 
look at some of the tests he intends to make to establish the 
life history of the European corn borer. In the hearing befo': 
the Committee the question was raised how far the corn borer 
moth can fly and the reply was given as 600 yards as the lonp.- 
est known distance at a single continuous flight, the moth> 
being capable to make many shorter flights in a given evening. 

At the same time Dr. Howard said the experts in charge 
propose to set aside a territory of 25,000 acres heavily infested 
and try to eradicate the pest from there. As the pest is to be 
attacked practically during the hibernating period onl)-. with 
trap crops and trap lights such as described by me condemned, 
and as the pest goes as low as the "stubble and upper part of 
the root" of practically any hollowstemmed plant, wild and 
cultivated, and with the borers admittedly capable of being 
completely hidden in ears of corn, this in itself can safely be 
said to be an absolutely futile attempt. But granted those 
25,000 acres can be cleared regardless of cost, and it would 
cost about as much as pumping the ocean dry, I had shown 

—24— 



on page 35 of my Circular No. 155, that 25,000 acres, the area 
there given as being infested by the Japanese beetle, is ai.oi.t 
equal to 39 square miles, and that a circle with a radius of 
three and one-half miles would include this area. Three and 
one-half miles is about 18,000 feet and as a flight of 600 yards 
is 1800 feet, we find that a moth is likely to fly all through the 
patch the first evening, which means that such a test cannot 
have the slightest value. 

Also one member of the Committee showed a clipping 
from an agricultural maga/^ine giving a report by one of those 
"show-me" fellows on how he found experts of the Bureau to 
work at establishing the life history of the borer. He said 4 
experts had been detailed to clear a small piece of ground of 
the cornborer, and as he found they made very slow headway 
by using snippers, asked them why they did not use a scythe, 
as then one man could do the job in half a day. He said they 
told him they were to remove only hollow stemmed plants, and 
this was the cause of the slow work. Evidently they were 
under orders to carry out an experiment, probably on a small 
scale the very thing that Chief Howard now proposes to do 
with 25,000 acres. 

Anyway, Dr. Howard showed no hankering for details, 
but began at once to whitewash his experts on general prin- 
ciples by saying, that plenty of people call laborers, employed 
by the Bureau, experts, that it is usually difficult to secure the 
best kind of help, and that th^ work is not at all done that way. 
thus putting the responsibility upon common labor's broad 
back. As the cost for half a day or a day was given as fully 50 

—25— 



dollars, it must be clear that it was not common labor that was 
•employed. 

In calling attention to the benefits to be derived in the 
control of the bollweevil from the use of poison on cotton late 
in the season, Chief Howard mentioned a profit of 9000 dollars 
on 150 acres made by one of the southern State Entomologists 
saying in effect: "This shows the possibilities of results in 
using a trained man." A member of the Commttee thought 
this was not a particularly good showing when Dr. Howard 
said : "Of course we can do much better than that." The facts 
are, an3'body knowing enough to make a farm pay could do as 
w-ell as that State Entomologist could, after Mr. B. R. Coad 
had described the method in Department Bulletin, No, 731, and 
to be able to do much better is virtually nothing but an idle 
claim. It so happens that the expert in question is the one 
mentioned in connection with his worthy colleague, the State 
Horticulturist, on page 7 of my Circular No. 154, the latter 
making Mrs. Hettie Dawson, their colored cook, say chickens 
won't eat bollweevil, and who both refused to make that state- 
ment over their signature. This same expert was doing the 
leading work under Dr. Hunter in getting out the life history 
of the bollweevil as given in Entomology Bulletins No. 45 and 
51. 

As the Bureau now recommends the use of poison late in 
the season, this means plants bearing squares available for 
breeding up till frost, and a consequent heavy survival of 
weevils in the spring, and brings again the question to the 
front as to what can be done to reduce their number in the 

—26— 



spring. The Bureau after testing the benefit to be derived 
from the picking up of fallen squares for 20 years had to admit 
that it is not feasible even with stalks destroyed early in the 
fall. 

Contrary to the Bureau's claims I showed from their own 
tests that the bollweevils as they arrive at a field, that had been 
previously cleared of them, if present, by a plowing well ahead 
•of planting time, settle at the edge, and from this I proved that 
the only possible chance then known to check the weevil in 
the spring through collection by hand labor consisted in ex- 
amining the edge of the field daily for arriving weevils after 
squares have begun to form and keep this up till emergence is 
over, thus preventing females settling at the edge from becom- 
ing fit for oviposition by feeding for 4 days upon squares and 
fly into the field in search of more squares, 5 squares per day 
ibeing required by a female then on the average. 
1 I proved this from a test recorded in Entomology Bul- 
letin No. 45, p. 87, also given on page 115 of Bulletin No. 51. 
The field in question was in an isolated location and planted 
T^ew to cotton, and when infestation was discovered on August 
61 it was "entirely restricted to a small area," the claim being 
made "it is evident that infestation began some time in July." 
As early as my Circular No. 33, February 18, 1905, I claimed 
from this that infestation is originally confined to the edge of 
th^ field, but, as the Bureau did not take any action on this 
poiVit for 5 years, it was not till my Circular No. 117, 1910 that 
I pointed out that unless the weevils are promptly picked ofi 
before any females are fit to oviposit, they will work their way 

—27— 



into the field. I carried this out in minute detail for the first 
time in my Circular No. 137, 1913. I showed that Dr. Hunter, 
in charge, and his staff were wrong in claiming that infesta- 
tion began in July, because they had to admit that infestation 
came from a cottonseed house just across the corner where in- 
festation began, from which it was clear that infestation began 
during the usual time of emergence, say March 1 to June 1 in 
that locality, Victoria, Texas. Hence the weevils had prac- 
tically 3 months in which to feed on squares and were by 
August 6 still confined to a small area, only explainable b} as- 
suming that the original infestation was extremely slight in 
this case.- This in turn showed that usually the infestation is 
much heavier and that therefore if the weevils are to be secur- 
ed by hand labor they must be secured daily at the edge during 
the period between the beginning of the setting of the squares 
and the end of emergence, usually about four weeks. To g*^t a 
female there means to prevent the oviposition of an average o' 
139 eggs in that many squares, all scattered over the field. No: 
only this, but it means to let weevils fly in unchecked before 
anv picking can begin, a period of about 10 days to the first 
fallen square. Moreover many squares shed without being ii- 
fested. From all this it was possible to show in a mathemat- 
ical wav that the picking up of squares is of necessity uttedy 
unprofitable. The Bureau now admits this. 

When beginning to realize in 1915 the possibilities of us- 
ing poultry in the control of the bollweevil and many o:her 
cotton insects, many of these feeding and developing a first 
brood on the early vegetation outside of the cottonfield, I first 

— 2g— 



of all called attention to the benefit that could be derived 
through watching the surroundings and the edges of the field 
with poultry in the spring, originally given on page 20 of my 
Circular No. 147. Subsequently I showed that poultry can be 
used the year around and made especially efficient by the use 
of a trappatch in late summer. This course renders the poi- 
soning of cotton for the bollweevil quite superfluous and takes 
care of bugs, cutworms and many other insects not amenable 
to poison. 

If poultry were not thus efficient as claimed, the trappatch 
could be kept heavily poisoned from July till cool weather 
sets in, doing away with the difficulty of poisoning the whole 
field. 

The forced reliance on the late use of poison under the 
Bureau's present system of control exposes the crop to many 
other dangers. Aside from insects and fungi there is the added 
danger of a wet fall. 



Mr. Hutchinson, a member of the Committee, incidentally 
wanted to know how to control the wheat moth, saying the 
insect is becoming a great pest in New Jersey and a large part 
of Pennsylvania and threatens to spread all over the country. 
Dr. Howard said, the insect was long known to be present and 
never attracted much attention, and the matter is in the com- 
petent hands of Dr. Headlee, the New Jersey State Entomolo- 
gist, and that the chief thing to do is to trash a little earlier 
so that fumigation of the trashed wheat may takp place that 
much sooner. Mr. Hutchinson said, it is impossible for every- 

—29— 



body to trash earlier, which, of course, is true, since the thrash- 
ing outfits would be inadequate in number, and busy only a 
very short time each year. 

As near as can be seen the only means of control the Bu- 
reau has to offer is fumigation after the grain is thrashed. The 
adult infests the ripening grain in the field, also the grain in 
the shock, and when stacked in the barn. As long as the grain 
is not thrashed the pest breeds thus unchecked. When I then 
come and point out a new means of control as I did on pages 
17 to 20 of my Circular No. 155 and pages 6 to 10 of my Cir- 
cular No. 156 in describing a new system of trapping adult 
insects, the Entomologist talks about dishing up a theory in 
one breath and about having tested out the theory repeatedly 
and found it wanting in the next breath. 

To make the point in question plain I will show how i: 
works out in the control of the codling moth and the Oriental 
peach moth, a matter discussed on pages 15 to 20 of my Cir- 
cular No. 155. I showed there that for the last named new 
pest, apparently capable of doing very much greater harm than 
the codling moth because of its wider food range, the Bureau 
has not only no practical means of control at all now, but has 
nothing whatever in sight. As for the codling moth you read 
in the report of the Entomologist for 1919 on page 5: "In the 
Grand Valley of Colorado codling moth losses have always 
been severe and many orchards have been unable to obtain 
satisfactory control even by thorough spraying." (By 'thor- 
ough spraying,' according to the Entomologist's report for 
1918, is meant a schedule of six applications of arsenate of 

—30— 



lead at the rate of 4 pounds of the powdered product to 200 
gallons of water with the addition of 4 pounds of fish-oil soap). 
"Study indicates that this was due to lack of co-operation 
among orchardists thoroughly to spray over a large area. Con- 
sequently arrangements were made with a number of contigu- 
ous orchardists whereby they individually agreed to spray ac- 
cording to the Department's recommendations and thus try 
out on a large scale the effect of uniformity of spraying opera- 
tions over hundreds of acres. This prevents the overflow of 
codling moths from poorly cared for orchards into well treated 
orchards and good results are expected." 

The Entomologist thus admits that the codling moth does 
a good deal of flying. After a while he may specifically want 
to have every pome fruit tree growing wild in the woods cut 
down, although in a general way he has advocated that for 
years, as in fact of every wild form of every plant, grasses to 
trees, since, of course, all serve to sustain insect pests that 
attack cultivated varieties. At that rate all "waste places" 
would have to be kept bare, while nature takes pains to cover 
all bare places with a mixture of vegetation. 

It is well known, in fact admitted and proved by the Bu- 
reau, that the codling moth shows a strong preference for cer- 
tain specially attractive varieties of pome fruits. Thus the sec- 
ond brood of the codling moth will heavily oviposit on sweet 
summer- and early fall-apples and but sparingly on less at- 
tractive varieties near by. 

On page 18 of my Circular No. 155 I had recorded a case 
where a number of sweet-bough apples lying under a tree in 

—31— 



August had in the twi-light attracted thousands of codling 
moths. The Entomologist, being chuckful of the humbug 
bacillus, does not hesitate to pretend to be unable to see any 
possibility of taking advantage of this concentration of the 
moths. In the first place on pages 8 to 11 of my Circular No. 
139, issued in 1913, I asked the Entomologist to satisfy himself 
that the codling moth is attracted to light such as the torch 
furnishes. He had now 7 years time to do this, but has done 
nothing, yet claims this feature with all otners has been in- 
vestigated from time to time and found wanting. If so why 
does he not give, even in a single case, the results, good, bad 
or indifferent? 

"In the Ozark region of Arkansas. .. .there are 3 full 
broods. . . .and a partial fourth." Where thus the generations 
are overlapping, if spraying with arsenicals is to be relied on 
it is plain that success along the lines laid down by the Bureau, 
means a coating of poison all through the season. At that, 
admittedly, "Many orchards have been unable to obtain satis- 
factory control." It follows, that if poisoning is to be relied 
on as a means of control, the total work can be lessened if 
specially attractive trees are kept especially heavily poisoned. 

I had pointed out on page 19 of my Circular No. 155, that, 
with a torch made to operate as previously described in this 
present circular, the smell given oflf by the blast blowing down 
upon some such a mixture as water, crushed, sweet, ferment- 
ing apples and sugar would, with the torch located near one 
or more trees acting as attractants because of the early fruit 
they produce and with the windfalls kept eaten up by hogs or 

—32— 



otherwise removed, result in trapping vast numbers of codling 
moths and this would then keep clear a large territory, includ- 
ing codling moths from host plants growing wild, doing away 
with all the expensive spraying otherwise necessary to secure 
a certain degree of protection. To use a torch properly means 
to use it during the early part of dark, warm nights whenever 
tests show the adults to be present in paying numbers. 

Another method of controlling the codling moth and ap- 
plicable to many other insects and which has never before been 
■published is this: A number of sweet summer apple trees are 
planted to attract moths of the second brood through their 
ripening or fallen fruit. This fallen fruit, or anyway, the best 
of it, is gathered up and thrown into a chicken-proof enclosure. 
The rest is eaten by hogs or otherwise destroyed. The moths 
will frequent these apples and a number of chickens caged in 
the enclosure can secure the moths in the evening before it 
gets too dark. Or, these apples might be kept covered with 
some sort of matting during the day, and uncovered and 
chickens put in only in the evening and nights. A little grain 
scattered among the apples at twi-light will get poultry to 
work when most wanted. 

This course it was shown on pages 9 to 13 of my Circular 
No. 153 is also the best means of controlling the apple maggot, 
present over a large part of the range of the codling moth. The 
apple maggot is not at all affected by poison sprays. As for 
the Oriental peach moth as this insect feeds upon most var- 
ieties of fruit trees, wild and cultivated, the methods outlined 
are of the more value in this case as this insect is affected by 

—33— 



poison practicalyl only when attacking fruit and then only with 
great difficulty and expense. The two first broods, out of a 
possible 4 broods in Maryland, where the insect first attracted 
attention, breed in growing twigs, stunting them and cannot 
be eTectively poisoned and are but little affected by other ex- 
pen^^ive official means recommended that seem to act chiefly 
as repellents and are discussed on pages 15 to 17 of my Cir- 
cular No. 155. To catch the early broods with a torch trap in 
the absence of sweet apples, applejuice, or apple jelly and 
sugar, allowed to ferment, will be about the thing to use in 
the pail in these prohibition days, sweetened hard cider pro- 
bably being the best. This then will equally affect the codling 
inoth and other insects of similar habits, as for instance the 
bud moth, also very difficult to fight by spraying, the only 
'official means advocated. 

Still another \vay to kill the codling moth, the Oriental 
moth and various pests of similar habits would consist in 
exposing in a cage accessible to them mashed sweet apples or 
sweetened apple juice allowed to ferment that have been treat- 
ed with some suitable poison. In this case, of course the pos- 
sible effect on beneficial insects has to be watched also. To 
come back to the control of the wheat moth in the adult form, 
the family of insects to which this moth belongs feeds but 
little or not at all as aditlts and i? also but little attracted to 
lights. Assuming that the wheat moth doesn't sip water and 
nectar to be found on plants, it may yet succumb in paying 
numbers to a trap torch giving forth an inviting smell by fer- 
menting sweet fluid, which means the presence of alcohol. 

—34— 



After the sheaves have been stacked in the barn, it would be 
feasible to thus operate a torch there. It could be lighted out- 
side and then hung or hoisted up to a safe place in the barn. 
Barns cannot be fumigated. Nor can moths be kept away. 
Hence the most promising method for control in barns pre- 
vious to thrashing would seem to be using a trap torch for a 
couple of hours once a week or so. All that is necessary is 
to put enough gasoline in to run the length of time desired 
and hang the apparatus up in a place made safe, when it will 
run its time without attention. 

In mills this course will keep infestation down, doing 
away with fumigation entirely or partly. If the moth sips 
liquids, in mills another, easier way is feasible. A solitary elec- 
tric light of low candle power left burning of nights with some 
poisoned sweet scented fluid nearby could be made to exert 
a daily reduction of the various adult flying insects that pass 
through the mill. 



Mr. Ruby, of Missouri, wanted to be shown what insect 
it was that afifected the quality and quantity of the gooseber- 
ry pies in his district the past summer. It was found that the 
imported currant worm was responsible. Dr. Howard said in 
substance, the first brood is to be destroyed by the use of an 
arsenical, while, if the pest is present when the fruit is ripen- 
ing, it is killed by the use of hellebore. Now this, in itself, is 
well enough. If we had to deal only with insects on the more 
valuable plants and such as are amenable to treatment by 
poison, there would not be much need for improved means of 



insect control. 

Taking the currant worm for an example one or more 
sprayings or dustings with an arsenical while the first brood 
worms are small, and this carried out over a neighborhood and 
not confined to a single garden, will practically put an end to 
the worms for that year in that locality, and there will be no 
Tced to use the much more expensive hellebore. In practice 
we find, however, that usually the worms are left to grow and 
multiply unnoticed till serious damage results when they are 
much more difficult to kill with poison and devour the balance 
of the leaves, if disposed ofif by making them take the poison 
cure, with a possible numerous second brood calling for the 
use of hellebore, with a few leaves to apply it to, making the 
treatment expensive and unsatisfactory. If the worms of the 
first brood have thus been allowed to become large before 
noticed, it is much better to apply a hot air blast with a torch 
constructed along the lines of the apparatus shown on last 
page. Such a blast kept swaying over the bushes makes the 
worms drop, to be killed on the ground. Such a blast inciden- 
tally licks off what spores of fungi are present, also affects any 
San Jose scales or other sucking insects that are present and 
not amenable to the use of poison, and early in the season is 
the best and cheapest means by far to keep down the currant 
aphis and when used then will get most of the first brood 
currant worms then hatching. 

Take another case : An apple orchard is affected by can- 
ker worms or other worms devouring the leaves as fast as they 
appear, or by the adults of the pear thrips, not amenable to 

—36— 



poison, but calling for a special nicotine-sulphate spray applied 
at high pressure under the Bureau's plan, causing many to 
become knocked off before they are seriously injured. The 
cankerworms are usually too numerous or too far developed to 
be much affected by poison, since there is usually but little 
foliage left to carry any poison. As far back as my Circular 
No. 147, 1915 I showed that there is no mechanical difficulty 
to rig up a torch along the lines of the tower spraying outfits 
or to rearrange this same outfit to act on insects or fungi at 
or near the ground, such as on grain and forage crops. Two 
men on the tower each handle a torch and make the worms 
drop, while two on the ground lick the fallen worms over at 
close range to die afterwards. In doing this they also lick 
over the fallen leaves on the ground, destroying the spores 
that would otherwise cause scab on the leaves and fruit. The 
licking of the tree more or less completely destroys lice, buri's 
and scales if present. There is no need to apply enough heat 
at any one time to cause any injury, since such licking is to 
be done from time to time to lick off other insects as for in- 
stance the larvae of the highly injurious pear thrips and the 
spores of fungi on fruit, foliage and bark. 

The fungus diseases are worst during the warm, moist 
weather. Sprays not only are liable to get washed off, but 
the fungus diseases spread in muggy weather enormously fast 
and spraying is too slow for best results, while licking with a 
torch the fruit, foliage and bark, especially licking into the 
cracks caused by cankers, and licking over the ground below, 
especially the fallen fruit, is vastly quicker, surer and cheaper 



than the present method. 



On page 6 of his report for 1919 the Entomologist says the 
official means to control the grape mealy bug, doing damage 
of late years in California, consists in fumigating with cyanide 
of soda and with sulphur fumes during the dormant season at 
night. Obviously this method is slow and expensive. On page 
37 of my Circular No. 155 I had pointed out that the use of a 
torch during the growing season not only keeps this pest easily 
down, but at the same time keeps down the grapeleaf hopper 
and fungus diseases. "With the exception of the phylloxera, 
the vine hopper is undoubtedly the most destructive insect pest 
in California," (Cal. Exp. Sta. Bull. No. 198, p. 1?S). These 
hoppers easily succumb to repeated slight swift lickings with 
a blast, especially while in the nymphal stage. Early in the 
season during cool periods, the adults hide largely under 
shreds of bark, places preferred by the mealy bug. Woody 
canes stand a pretty sharp licking, making easily possible the 
destruction of the mealy bug by the use of a torch. 

Two closely related mealy bugs infest the citrus fruits of 
California. They are discussed in Farmess' Bulletin No. 862. 
Most of the sections of California where mealy bugs are a 
factor are overrun by the Argentine ant. These and other 
ants harbor and distribute mealy bugs and defend them against 
their natural enemies, causing thus, it is officially estimated, 
an increase five times over what their number otherwise 
would be. 

On orange trees it is possible, so the Entomologist states 

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on page 1-i of his 1919 report, to profitably keep the ants oft the 
trees by banding and by the use of ant poison. This banding 
is apparently essentially the method described on page 13 of 
Farmers' Bulletin No. 863 and consists in applying a 5 inch 
band of parafifin to the tree trunk and over this a mixture of 
sulphur and sticky tree-banding material "almost one-fourth 
inch thick." Whether such bands used year after year do not 
interfere with the health of the tree remains to be seen. Thus 
far: "....direct application of the commercial sticky tree- 
banding material alone has never been noted in California to 
afifect citrus trees seriously" (p. 13). 

Such use of banding and poison is merely a preventive 
against the attack by ants on the tree. It does not prevent the 
ants from breeding under possible trash on the ground, and 
especially not on rank vegetation around the citrus groves. 
O'range trees are affected by numerous sucking insects and 
also some biting ones. The sucking ones — scales, rustmites, 
red spiders, thrips, mealy bugs — are all amenable to the use 
of a torch blast. It can readily be used at night. Unless the 
torch is used, you have, according to official advice, to spray or 
fumigate for the mealy bug, the same as for scales during the 
cool part of the year, or, during summer, when sprays are ad- 
mittedly not safe (F. B. No. 8C3, p. 10), you have to use a high 
pressure water spray. For m.ites and red spiders you are told 
to use finely powdered sulphur, for thrips to spray with to- 
bacco extract dilution or other suitable sprays. These sprays 
and powders do not appreciably afifect the Argentine ant nor 
do they afifect catydids, also often present in large numbers. A 

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blast from a suitable torch affects all these insects and without 
injuring the trees, if used with as much judgment as is re- 
quired in using other means of control. 

For the control of catydids the Bureau recommends 2 
sprayings with arsenicals, estimating cost per acre at $5.00 (D. 
A. Bull. No. 256, p. 24). This is admitted to be of value only 
while the catydids are in the first three nymphal stages. There 
is no reason why two lickings with a torch would not answer 
as well. In that case these lickings affect aU the sucking in- 
sects and the ants present, while the arsenical spray does not 
affect them. 

But oranges, in Southern California at least, are subject 
also to attack by the orange tortrix, an insect having habits 
similar to the codling moth. It is discussed in California Ex- 
periment Station Bulletin No. 214, p. 494, issued in 1911. This 
insect, like the catydids, oi;iginally fed upon plants other than 
the orange, hence as orange culture increases, may be looked for 
to increase in virulence. "During the season of 1909-10 it was 
the cause of considerable concern in certain sections of the 
southern California citrus belt." Its food habits render it 
even less susceptible to the use of an arsenical spray as a 
means of control than is the codling moth. There are three 
broods a year. Poultry would probably be of value in de- 
stroying fallen infested fruit. With the ground otherwise kept 
bare there is but little for poultry to feed on except Argentine 
ants, and, as a rule, some grasshoppers. It would be feasible 
to maintain a flock of poultry in the grove, changing the loca- 
tion daily, protecting them if necessary against ants at night 

—40— 



by furnishing roosts made ant proof. The only other ad- 
ditional means promising control of the orange tortrix is the 
use of a sweetish smell produced by the use of a torch as a 
trap at night, as described for the codling moth. 

It is all very well for the Department of Agriculture to 
go after the man that puts cedar sawdust in the pepper he sells, 
but what about the U. S. Entomologist that put deliberately 
hum in his bugology? 



The discovery of two new serious wheat diseases during 
1919 in Madison County, lUinois, discussed in Farmers' Bul- 
letin No. 1063, brings up with renewed force the question of 
controlling fungus diseases on grain and forage crops. The 
new fungi in question are the "Take All," according to the 
Bureau of Plant Industry a sac fungus, and present also in 
Indiana, and the "flagsmut," "one of the true smuts" (p. 2). 

Disinfection of the seed is usually, if not always, of no 
use in the control of a sac fungus. And in any case such dis- 
infection would be only a partial remedy, since spores capable 
of causing infection are present on the land. To illustrate: 
Corn smut is caused by a sac fungus. The spores that start 
the disease on corn live over winter on diseased dead corn- 
stalks, infected manure, other combustible matter and in the 
soil. They there sprout and produce a crop of spring spores 
which are blown by the wind onto corn plants to start the dis- 
ease again. No official means of control at all satisfactory is 
known. 

The use of a torchblast ofifers, as far as can be seen, the 

—41— 



only workable means of attacking the fungus during the grow- 
ing season. In explanation, bearing in mind that the flame 
from a torch is capable of licking off fungus spores, it will be 
well to first look at the known possibilities in the use of a 
torch towards the control of the chinchbug on corn. As far 
back as 1898 I described a satisfactory method of using a torch 
on corn for chinchbugs, laying stress on the fact that the 
bugs largely hide under clods at the base of the plant during 
the night, mornings and cool days, and that licking these clods 
then does away with all injury to the corn. Besides if a few^ 
outer rows were thus necessarily injured or destroyed in com- 
bating migration of bugs from nearby small grain, these few 
rows could be seeded to stockpeas or some other suitable crop 
and this method of control would still remain far the cheapest. 

Soon after 1898 I heard of a case, when a farmhand, I be- 
lieve in Sangamon County, Illinois, rigged up a 2-horse corn 
cultivator with 2 torches or more to blow heat onto the plants 
as a means of destroying chinchbugs while the cultivator went 
around. It would have been possible to use 8 torches, one in 
front and one in the rear of each hoe. Now if some such ar- 
rangement of torches to sweep all of the ground in front of the 
shovels were provided, it would be possible to lick the spores 
of cornsmut off before the shovels disturb the soil. This, espe- 
cially if repeated at each cultivation, would practically break 
the circuit of the fungus and control the disease and do this 
at very little cost. 

The infection of wheat in the case of the take-nil fungus 
may and may not be along these same lines. The fact is, the 

—42— 



nature of the take-all disease is as yet obscure. Two diseases 
similar to the take-all fungus are thus described in Circular No, 
288 of the Illinois Agricultural Experiment Station: "The 
spores of the loose smuts of wheat and barley ripen at the time 
the healthy plants are in bloom. These spores are blown 
about by the wind and many of them find their way into the 
flowers of the healthy plants. Here these spores give rise to 
smut infection within the very young kernels, which mature 
without any outward evidence of the presence of the disease. 
When such kernels are sown, the plants which come from 
them will produce smutted heads. Because the infection is 
internal, a method of seed treatment must be used which wiU 
have a deeper influence than formaldehyde. Experiment have 
shown that the smut fungus is more easily killed by heat than 
are the germs of the grain, and this fact has led to the use of 
the hot-water method of treatment.... If the temperature 
rises above 131 F., the vitality of the grain will be seriously 
injured, if it falls below 124 degrees Fahrenheit it will be in- 
effective. . . . This treatment is often injurious to the vitality 
of the grain. . . . Because of the tediousness of this process, it 
is commonly used to obtain smut-free seed for a small plat 
from which sound healthy seed may be taken for general seed- 
ing the following year." 

Of course this seed plat is subject to infection from other 
fields, since the spores can be carried for miles. Again other 
fungus diseases may also be present. Suppose stinking smut is 
also present. The seed can be cleared of spores clinging to it 
by the formaldehyde treatment officially recommended. On 

—43— 



pages 88 to 35 of my Circular No. 155 this matter of fungus 
control by the use of a blast is discussed and on page 35' is 
given a way of clearing seed by the use of a torchblast: ". . . . 
by letting the seed sUde slowly down over a wire screen and 
letting one torch, or, better, two or more torches from different 
directions, play upon the seed, thus licking it clean, ..." But 
cleaning the seed does not prevent other spores present in old 
straw, manure, in the soil or blown in by the wind from other 
fields from affecting the plants. Suppose a suitable automobile 
truck with rather high wheels were fitted with a row of burn- 
ers to sweep the ground while the spring crop of spores is get- 
ting ready to be blown up to the plant, this course then would 
work on all of the fungi. This could be repeated as necessary 
at intervals as long as the grain plants rolled down by the 
wheels have sufficient flexibility to rise up enough to permit of 
the gathering of the heads. This then will lick off the spores 
from the plants and on the ground and will result in a cor- 
respondingly reduced infection for the year following. As now 
proposed: "... On farms which are infected (by the take-all 
fungus) a system of crop rotation should be used which keeps 
wheat, oats, barley and rye off the land for four or five years 
. . . ." This is too long for practical results, besides spores 
would be blown in from adjoining fields, and, further, the 
black stem rust fungus attacking wheat can survive on many 
wild grasses. Hence a direct means of attack during the 
growing season, such as is found in a blast blowing onto the 
growing plants and to the soil offers the best chance of success. 
There is a great variance of opinion as to what the life 



circuit of the take-all fungus really is. Thus in a Bulletin, 
issued in October 1919 by the Division of the Natural History 
Survey of the Department of Registration and Education of 
the State of Illinois, Stephen A. Forbes, Chief, and written by 
Prof. F. L. Stevens, the opinion is given on page 263 that "we 
have here several distinct diseases due to as many separate 
causes." 

However one thing can be considered as manifest: that 
the disease that does the actual damage must be caused by a 
parasitic fungus. On the other hand it seems that the same 
fungus can subsist and produce spores forming the successive 
stages of the circuit on the dying and dead plant, being thus 
in its later stages saprophytic. 

With these spores produced on the dying or dead plant 
at the time the wheat plant is in bloom, the disease could be 
spread by them, infecting the incipient seed — and this pro- 
bably is what happens in this particular case — or it is also 
possible the spores may cling to decaying vegetation, the soil, 
and to the as yet growing and ripening plants, and later to the 
seed, to infect the young plant as it develops from the healthy 
seed. In any case spores must be produced for reproduction 
and this chiefly happens during the period while wheat is in 
bloom. Therefore, then, in any case, licking the plants over 
with a torch at suitable intervals is the most feasible means 
now known to destroy the spores. 

While the Bureau of Plant Industry has been wanted for 
22 years to satisfy itself whether or not a blast from a torch 
does destroy the spores of fungi, and has done nothing, it so 

—45— 



happens that Dr. S. A. Forbes had investigated to a certain 
extent the claims made by me as far back as 1898 on this point, 
and had published the results of a test along this line as far 
back as 1903, a matter referred to on pages 31 and 32 of my 
Circular No. 155. 

As to insects Dr. Forbes did not give the matter a decent 
test, since this use of a blast was intended chiefly for sucking- 
insects such as lice, scales, grapeleaf hoppers, or insects hid- 
den about or under the plants as chinchbugs, harlequin bugs, 
and vine crop pests and for such leaf eating insects that are 
not readily killed by poison and especially if they are gregar- 
ious, as are fleabeetles and blisterbeetles, or for caterpillars 
that had eaten up nearly all of the foliage. Dr. Forbes prac- 
tically ignored all these and claimed he could not readily kill 
a wooUy-bear caterpillar with a blast. Neither coud he have 
killed it at all readily with poison. These caterpillars are gen- 
eral feeders, pupate under rubbish and had best be combated 
with poultry scratching for their cocoons, usually located in 
ground covered by a heavy stand of grass. 

Nor does this point matter just now. This was a matter 
for Chief Howard and his stafif to test out thoroughly. As far 
as they were concerned, they took a cabbage thickly infested 
with lice and attempted to rid it by one application of the 
blast, using too much of course, then reporting the method to 
be useless. No spray could rid such a plant even with several 
applications freely made, while the proper use of the torch 
consists in frequent slight lickings, never giving the lice a 
chance to become plentiful. This is immensely better and 



cheaper than the use of a spray, recommended by the Bureau 
to be used at the start and at inervals. 

Thus in the case of the melon aphis for instance the blast 
is blown slantways upon the ground when the deflection 
reaches the underside of the leaves, whereas the Bureau, as ex- 
plained in detail on pages 2 to 7 of my Circular No. 153, shows 
■on page 1 of Farmers' Bulletin No. 914 one man lifting a vine 
and another using a compressed air sprayer to do the spraying, 
very slow and expensive. Besides vine crops do not want to 
be handled. 

However Dr. Forbes tested the blast also on at least one 
kind of fungus. He found he could lick off the spores from a 
mildewed lilac leaf and, while admitting this was satisfactor- 
ily accomplished, said that after some days another crop of 
spores was found to have appeared. Of course this second 
crop was produced by the mycelium working inside of the 
leaf, same as the first, and the fact that it was produced at all 
shows that the leaf had not been injured when the first coat 
•of spores was licked ofT. Thus the whole question resolves 
itself to whether it will be possible to apply a blast under the 
v^aried conditions to be encountered at low enough sost. There 
is no difficulty in constructing a torch for any purpose, simil- 
arly as the various spraying machines of today were evolved 
from the bucket spray pump. As for cheapness, a blast gen- 
erated by gasoline is far the cheapest combined contact insec- 
ictide and fungicide and the only means that can at present be 
considered to destroy fungus spores on grain and forage crops. 
Of course there is need for a method of utilizing a lower grade 

—47— 



of fuel for this same purpose. 

At the present rate of use the supply of mineral oils will 
be exhausted in a romparatively short time. Consequently 
any suggestion of an increased use should be met by an at- 
tempt to devise some means to make use of a killing agent for 
insects and fungi that is likely to be available for many or all 
generations to come. 

It should prove feasible to use electricity. While water 
power may increase sharply in cost, we are not likely to run 
short of winpower. This should give us reasonably cheap 
electricity till doomsday. 

Inasmuch as insects and fungi have to be combated chief- 
ly during the warm part of the year, the ideal way would seem 
to be to make use of the rays of the sun, by concentrating 
them by the use of a suitable mirror right on the job, and 
thus finding a way to create a flame and heat and apply same 
to the vegetation as you go. 



"Not all is graft and politics down in Washington," says 
Secretary of Agriculture IMeredith in referring to a reduction 
in appropriations for his Department. Evidently he does not 
look for much else outside of the Executive Departments. "I 
am going to work as advertising manager of the Department 
and if I can give the people some idea of the honest work 
done and the benefits derived from them I will do it." On the 
the other hand he deplores "the tendency to discuss waste, 
graft and soft snaps," as regards the Executive Departments. 

"Washington," in this case, evidently means Congress. 

—48— 



But it can be shown that on the whole, there is neither more 
nor less graft in Congress than the Majority, that sends the 
Members, wants them to have, and that, if Secretary Meredith 
really wants to do the country one sure enough good turn and 
set a good example, at existing appropriations, he simply has 
to bring the issues discussed in this Circular up for honest 
work by the respective Members of his official Family. 

For example : The majority of the Voters instructed the 
Members of Congress to pass the prohibition law we now 
have, and Congress did its best in having it passed. On the 
other hand some little movement was attempted in the past 
to prohibit divorce, and Congress did not pass a law prohibit- 
ing it, simply because there was not even a slight prospect that 
a majority of the Voters wants it prohibited. That shows that 
Congress does give the People what the majority of the Voters 
want, and if the thing thus given proves to be no good, Con- 
gress puts the blame on the people where it justly belongs. As 
long as most Congressmen are expected to get the largest pos- 
sible appropriations for their respective territories, so long we 
shall hear about misappropriations. 

We have now had prohibition long enough to see how it 
is working out. The rich antis go in swarms across the border 
to Mexico, Cuba and Canada to tank up and gamble, spending 
about 2 billion dollars a year. The middle class and the poor 
manage things at home. You cannot keep tap on them singly, 
not by spending a billion dollars a year in enforcing the law. 
Personally I am a total abstainer since many years but I be- 
lieve that humanity is best served by permitting a strictly 

—49— 



temperate use of alcoholic beverages. Of course, they, as all 
else good in itself, can be misused. As long as we cannot get a 
majority of people to voluntarily live temperate lives and to 
enforce a law to that effect, it will be useless to try to make 
things better by an attempt to enforce an absurdedly strict 
prohibition law. It is not much of a raisin pie that does not 
exceed the limit of one-half per cent of alcohol. It is better 
to fry the fat right at home out of those that make hogs of 
themselves through drink, than to have them carry the money 
across he border. 

We often hear it said that this country of ours is a Christ- 
ian one. If so, Christ sanctioned the temperate use of alco- 
holic beverages by His example. On the other hand, look at 
divorce. Christ absolutely forbids it. Where then does the 
Christianity of the majority come in? 

It is unlawful to say the Lord's prayer in our public insti- 
tutions of learning. Consequently they are un-Christian and 
anti-Christian. It is not lawful to instruct the child towards a 
belief in God in these schcools. Consequently they are in the 
last analysis atheistic. That this is so is proven by the fact 
that atheists are loud in the condemnation of those that main- 
tain private schools where religion is taught. The child is 
taught in the public schools to imitate Washington, Franklin 
and other great Americans, but sight is lost of the fact that 
these men were not the product of atheistic schools. They 
took Christ for their pattern and made a more or less success- 
ful effort to imitate Him. The child in our public schools hears 
nothing of the humility, purity, obedience and voluntary pov- 

—50— 



erty as shown in Christ's life and in that of His followers. It 
is no wonder then that crime increases in leaps and bounds, 
especially among- the young, and statistics show that children 
of divorced people make far the worst showing. If we do not 
like this, we have to see that some better seed is planted. The 
trouble is with ourselves. Absence of belief in God results in 
an mordinate love of created things by both rich and poor, and 
the worship of the golden calf. 

Since we all are liable to fall, it is only fair, relative to the 
issues under discussion, that Secretary Meredith make good 
his claim of giving honest service by having his experts do 
what they were all along wanted to do— to either admit that I 
am right, or show wherein I am wrong. 




The Reinlein 

Knapsack 

Gasoline Torch. 

Patent Ko. 739,221 

Sept. 15, 1903 



—51- 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
015 793 696 7 



